I was in New York City during New York Fashion Week last February. The Fall/Winter 2008 collections were being unveiled and a friend of mine who works in the fashion industry attended the Carolina Herrera show. When I met up with him, he couldn’t stop raving about the magnificent hats that adorned the models’ heads and the long, elegant feathers that swayed rhythmically as the models made their way down the catwalk.

I later learned that the talented artist responsible for that particular stylistic flourish was a South Africa-born, New York-based milliner by the name of Albertus Q. Swanepoel. While I had never heard of him per se, it would seem that his talent was already a well-guarded secret amongst the cream of New York designers including Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schoeler, Peter Som and Thakoon to name but a few.While his label, Albertus Quartus, isn’t yet a household name, that may be about to change very soon.

Swanepoel is one of the lucky finalists for the coveted 2008 CFDA/Vogue Fund Award. (Source) The fund offers a cash prize of $200,000 to the winner and $50,000 to the two runners-up, But, perhaps more importantly, the prestige associated with mere inclusion in this select group of promising design talents frequently translates into the kind of publicity and attention that often lead to bigger and better things. Rodarte and Phillip Lim are prime examples of what that kind of attention can do for a struggling fashion label.

We muse and go all wistful over images of yesteryear and we think they should be black and white, slightly fuzzy and preferably with a bit of creased sepia marks.  Our conceptions of bygone eras are mostly dotted with stereotypes and “facts” that have been passed down. 

1939

The 1940s’ for instance wasn’t all war propaganda posters with blonde hair and red lipstick or Southern belles in frothy gowns often depicted in black and white.  As I was doing a lot of Flickr searching today, I came across these images that Elegance is Refusal had uploaded from vintage issues of Vogue.  Note the dates because even I had to raise my eyebrows a little at the earliness of the years.